Alexei Nikolayevich Kosygin

In September 1965, Alexei Kosygin presented the most radical economic reform proposal in Soviet history to the Central Committee. The plan: introduce profit indicators for enterprises, judge them by sales rather than output, align wholesale prices with real demand, and let enterprises control part of their own investment.

It was essentially the same direction as the economic reforms of Czechoslovakia's 'Prague Spring' in 1968. The difference? Kosygin's reforms pursued economic rationalisation without political liberalisation, a purely internal party reform.

But Brezhnev's 'stability' line, the pushback from the military-industrial complex, and, decisively, the fear of political liberalisation after the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia, all watered it down. Enterprise autonomy was curtailed, and by the early 1970s the reform was effectively dead.

Kosygin remained Premier until 1980, but his reform was never realised. The consensus view: the Soviet economy's stagnation from the 1970s onward was precisely the result of this reform's shipwreck.

In the autumn of 1965, just after the Indo-Pakistani war ended, the Soviet Union seized a decisive opportunity to build its diplomatic foothold in South Asia. Kosygin invited both sides to Tashkent, where from 4 to 10 January 1966 he personally mediated between Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and Pakistani President Ayub Khan.

After a gruelling week of negotiations, the Tashkent Declaration was signed on 10 January. Both sides agreed to withdraw forces to pre-war positions, restore diplomatic relations, exchange prisoners of war, and resume economic and trade ties. It was the first major instance during the Cold War in which the Soviet Union successfully acted as an 'honest broker' in a conflict between non-communist states.

But the declaration was shadowed by tragedy: Prime Minister Shastri died suddenly in Tashkent the following day. In both India and Pakistan, the agreement was fiercely criticised: each side believed it had conceded too much. Even so, Kosygin's mediation was a symbolic moment: it demonstrated that Soviet diplomacy could project influence beyond either Cold War bloc. It proved that Kosygin was not merely an economic technocrat, but a statesman who played an independent role on the world stage.

By the early to mid-1970s Brezhnev had built a power base strong enough to become the effective leader, and from that point Kosygin's position was steadily pared back. Ilya Zemtsov dates Kosygin's loss of power to the 24th Party Congress of 1971, where the formula 'the Politburo led by Brezhnev' was first publicised; Brezhnev moved to strengthen the Party's hold over the government apparatus, weakening the Premier's footing.

The 1977 Soviet Constitution strengthened the head of state's control over the Council of Ministers, making that Council subordinate to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. When Brezhnev replaced Podgorny as head of state the same year, Kosygin's role in the day-to-day management of government was drastically reduced. During Kosygin's sick leave Brezhnev appointed Nikolai Tikhonov First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers, and Tikhonov, a conservative, used the post to reduce Kosygin to a standby role; at a Central Committee plenum in June 1980 the economic development plan was presented by Tikhonov, not Kosygin. Kosygin remained Premier until 1980, but his powers had shrunk to the point that he had to clear Council of Ministers decisions with Brezhnev.

His health broke down in the 1970s. He was frequently hospitalised, with Kiril Mazurov acting on his behalf on several occasions; after his first heart attack in 1976, according to people close to him, he changed from a vibrant personality to a tired man who seemed to have lost the will to continue. Russian-language sources record a 1976 stroke and repeat myocardial infarctions in October 1979 and August 1980. On 1 August 1976, while kayaking, he lost consciousness and nearly drowned, which sharply damaged his health. Between 1976 and 1980 he twice filed letters of resignation and was turned down both times.

Reform attempts continued during his tenure but did not reverse his political decline. The 1973 reform, intended to weaken the central ministries and give more powers to republican and local authorities, was cancelled for failing to meet its goal, though it did create associations. The 1979 reform, unlike 1965, was meant to increase central government involvement by strengthening the ministries, but very little of it was implemented because of his resignation in 1980 and Tikhonov's conservative approach. Brezhnev rejected Kosygin's bid to produce more consumer goods under the Tenth Five-Year Plan (1976-1981), which Kosygin had called the 'plan of quality'; consumer goods consequently held only 26 percent of industrial production. Kosygin's son-in-law records that he was furious with the decision and said increased defence expenditure would become the Soviet Union's 'complete ruin'.

On Afghanistan the sources conflict. One account records that Kosygin strongly opposed any military intervention and that the Politburo unanimously supported intervention at a closed meeting held without him. The other, on the testimony of V. I. Varennikov, reports that in 1979 Kosygin was the sole Politburo member who did not support sending Soviet troops, and that from that moment he broke completely with Brezhnev's circle. Because the 'sole member' formulation rests on testimony, it is attributed here rather than asserted. At an official visit by an Afghan delegation Kosygin criticised Taraki and Amin for executing those who disagreed with them, promised more economic and military aid, and rejected any Soviet intervention. The supplied material on the Soviet-Afghan War likewise records that several leading politicians at the time, Kosygin and Gromyko among them, were against intervention, so his opposition is documented without supporting a claim of uniqueness.

Hospitalised in October 1980, he was released from the Politburo on the 21st and from the premiership on the 23rd on his own submitted application because of worsening health. Three days later he was deprived of all government protection, communications and luxury goods he had held during his political life. From his hospital bed he worried about the coming Eleventh Five-Year Plan (1981-1985), feared its complete failure and noted the Politburo's unwillingness to address it constructively, as Politburo member V. V. Grishin recalled. He died in Moscow on 18 December 1980 after a sudden cardiac arrest, and official Soviet press reported the death only three days later. The funeral was postponed for three days because he died on the eve of Brezhnev's birthday, 19 December, and on the day of Stalin's, 18 December. Vorotnikov recalled that for two or three days the country did not know Kosygin had died. After a state funeral and cremation, Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov and Tikhonov laid the urn with his ashes at the Kremlin Wall Necropolis.

Colleagues remembered him as carrying out his work stoically but lacking enthusiasm. An anonymous GRU source called him a lonely and somewhat tragic figure who understood faults but, being restrained, preferred caution. Pierre Trudeau described him as Khrushchev without the rough edges, the forerunner of Mikhail Gorbachev; Kissinger said he was devoted almost fanatically to his work, and Andrei Sakharov considered him the most intelligent and toughest man in the Politburo. Russian memoirists record that neither Khrushchev nor Brezhnev liked him, yet both kept him as the country's economic manager.